Daniel Rintz 38, is a German film-maker who became well-known for his movie Somewhere Else Tomorrow that chronicled his ride around the world. Now he is back on the road, making his way up through Africa with his girlfriend, Josie, riding a BMW R1200GS and a BMW R80GS.

After 10 years of adventure riding through Asia I thought I’d seen everything that could be thrown in my direction: buses overtaking around blind corners; unmarked speed-bumps; ten-year-olds riding scooters while yelling into phones. And once, in Papua New Guinea, I had a spear thrown at me. But none of these experiences prepared me for a wild and angry bull elephant staring me down during a recent ride through Sri Lanka.

21-year-old Ben King wants to become the youngest person to ride a motorcycle around the world. He’s only just passed his test. He’s not blessed with a depth of mechanical knowledge and he’s planning to wild camp, but hasn’t done much of that either. Ready to go then...

The bus crash certainly sped up my plans for some Trans- Saharan adventure. It was back in the good-old 1980s: Margaret Thatcher; miners’ strikes and dreadful spells of unemployment. It was all pre-internet and selfies, but on the plus side there were plenty of thriving pubs, LCs were £500 and Team Bike were in their heyday of 24-hour endurance racing. Things could have been worse.

On 1st June, 2013 I left my job as a commercial artist to pursue my passion for travel photography. I would ride across the country, documenting the adventure from atop my hand-built motorbike, nicknamed The Red Head. I had even planned a long overdue visit to see my parents, who had not seen me home for a Kansas summer in ten years.

The Paris Dakar has always been serious business in our household. Every New Year we would huddle around the television and devour every second of screentime. I was 15 when I first saw Honda Africa Twins crossing the desert, Honda won the rally every year between 1986 and 1989. It became my dream bike, instantly.

A few years back we had the idea of doing the 10,000-mile Mongol rally on Monkey Bikes – not the Honda ones, but 90cc Jenching replicas. With some friends, me and my brother Wayne put on bash plates, bigger oil coolers and stronger shocks, and went from 8into 10in wheels with Continental tyres.

We had been told about a ‘not too rough’ riding route from Alamos to Copper Canyon but having studied the map, we decided to do the sensible thing and take the B roads. Off we headed into the hills in bright sunshine, me astride my 1200GS and Tony on his 1150 Adventure. He had every conceivable extra including a sat nav, which was set to no motorways, no U turns, shortest route, never avoid unpaved roads.

It wasn't Igor's size that made him intimidating, being made more of beer than of muscle. Instead, it was the way every person in Semipalatinsk, Kazakhstan, would bend over backwards to make sure Igor went away happy, even the police. I guess that’s the level of respect you command when you’re a well connected crime lord in a remote backwater famous only for Soviet-era nuclear weapons testing.

I'd just finished a contract for a big NGO and was at a loose end in Sweden. Free time and some savings put me on the road – I figured I’d try to retrace the old caravan silk road that connected Europe and Asia before the age of container ships and jumbo jets. I’d end up in the Himalayas and find… what? See when I got there.

It was a dank grey September morning when, suddenly finding myself with nothing much left to lose and utterly bored of being me, I unglued my face from the floor beside my bed and sought guidance from the I Ching, to be thus advised: 'It furthers one to cross the Great Water'.

Retiring from work after 33 years came as a wonderful relief. I was now free to tour with friends I’d made while living in Southern California in the early 1980s. Tom Bannon was a successful amateur ex flat track racer who, even at close to 75 years of age, is a rider of some ability. His friend Dwayne Holman would join our tour and, as luck would have it, had a lovely Suzuki SV650 I could borrow.

In my dreams I’m blasting across Europe on one of them new VFR800Fs. Matching luggage, heated grips, all the bells and whistles. These are unclean, unfaithful thoughts, and the Slippery Bandit (oil leak) knows I’m having them. She trundles on faithfully nonetheless.

The plan was simple. The three of us would jump on the bikes head to Whitby, pitch tents and have a few days on the lash. Live it large, like young men are supposed to do. What could possibly go wrong? Our assorted rides for one thing.

Two mates roped me into my first foreign bike trip and we decided to adopt a light touch to forward planning. A night round at mine with a few beers poring over a family atlas let us throw together a route and rough itinerary.